In an increasingly noisy and close-quarters world, sound diffusion and leakage from room to room or unit to unit is becoming an increasingly pressing issue in terms of enjoyment of peace and quiet in one's abode, place of work, etc. Separately, within a particular room, especially a large room, various surfaces can reflect too much sound, creating a live, reverberant environment, making conversation difficult and making sound quality suffer in general.
To combat these issues, sound tiles, thicker walls and extra layering in construction have been used with varying levels of success. Various technical measurements, such as STC (Sound Transmission Class) can be employed to give a simple representation via a single number such as “54” to represent how much a particular partition in a building prevents noise from reaching the adjacent room. A higher number represents a greater sound dissipation, and the example of 54 would mean that a substantial amount of sound would be blocked, but a significant portion would transmit through the medium. Generally dBA (decibels acoustic) or SPL (sound pressure level) is used to represent the efficacy of various discrete strata within the audible-to-human portion of the sound spectrum.
Sound control devices have long been used in music rooms, such as recording studios and band and orchestra rooms at various educational institutions to combat the issue of unwanted reverberation and noise within a particular room. More recently, these technologies have also seen use in home theater, music rooms and general household living rooms, with the goal of improving sound quality, without necessarily having the goal of preventing sound leakage into the adjacent room or rooms. For devices used to absorb sound, not isolate it, a Sound Absorption Coefficient is generally given, with different ratios from 0.0 to 1.0 for various segments of the audible spectrum, roughly corresponding to ranges like the human voice, to lower ranges, as would befit a home theater with a powerful sub-bass range response. A value of 1.0 being the highest and denoting total sound absorption for a given device, i.e., sound waves that hit the device do not reflect back once they have touched the device.
Typically, however, unless a building is built with the intent of including sound control or isolation, the costs involved in retrofit are prohibitive for most consumers. When a building is built with these features, the walls or floors will generally be thicker, denser or more expensive than a typical house or other building would have. Alternative to initially building the room to control sound is the option of adding tiles, boards or other external insulation to existing structure. Tiles and materials sold have generally been made from highly synthetic materials and have been rather expensive and/or unsightly, especially in terms of inexpensive or home use. Furthermore, the existing external solutions to the problem have been relatively heavy, requiring strong adhesives or fasteners in order to keep the devices attached to the walls, and this can lead to unsightly fasteners being visible externally.
The aesthetic element is especially critical because many currently-offered after-the-fact (after a particular room or building has been constructed and finished) solutions to these sound issues have unusual or unsightly appearances in rooms that often tend to be used for entertaining visitors or other guests who may be surprised to find odd-looking objects affixed to the walls or ceiling, oftentimes at odd angles and colored and textured differently than the rest of the room.